Why Dreaming Keeps Us Breathing

Who doesn’t like to dream?

It’s remarkable when you think about what the world was like 50, 20, even 5 years ago. What were people dreaming about then? Who would’ve thought that electronic mail would have become the key to the Internet. It’s even more absurd to imagine (or dream) that email will not exist in a decade’s time. It isn’t a coincidence that with ubiquitous access to keyboards we choose to communicate thru 140 characters and clip-art emoticons. Johannes Gutenberg would cry.

As we pass the half-way mark of the teen-driven “Social Decade”. What are some of the macro trends that will shape the next decade?

We are simply using less to make more. It’s no wonder that commodities and miners are struggling. With a booming population we’re forced to be on one side more resourceful and the other accommodating to more diverse and immediate needs. We see examples of this across the spectrum. It seems like everything we need is in the palm of our hands, in our cellular phones.

The Cloud has replaced filing cabinets and changed the way we do business forever. Yet we’re working harder and longer than before.

We need less furniture, our media becomes digital and virtual. Yet the living space per person has doubled?

The Amazon Echo

This trend is not about to slow down. It seems that through miniaturization our tools will become stronger, faster, and cheaper on less. But we’ll continue to push them until they’re last decade’s relics.

With demand comes scale. With data comes efficiency. With a little bit of luck and predictive analytics, our efforts will appear effortless.

Think about it – what hasn’t become “disposable” in the past decade? Some would argue that it started with Warhol, but Fashion, Art, Music, Food, Design, Literature, and more has become consumable.

Any visit to your local Goodwill is a tour through a period when people purchased goods with longevity in mind. If it lasted 10 years brilliant, less than 2 and consumer reports would be notified. Today people are unlikely to keep a job for more than two years, let alone an item of clothing or a physical good.

We’re witnessing the Uberization of the world. Anything and everything can be rented. If you do buy it because of critical mass, it can be replaced or trashed. Helicopters, food, nurses, and luxury items can all be borrowed for the night and returned from a complete stranger. This was unheard-of ten years ago, when the world and the marketplace were in a much different state of mind.

3D printing is going to change everything. Imagine 3D printing a car. What used to take 90 days to build can now be complete in 48 hours for half the cost. On demand ambulances for hospitals, just in time tanks for the army. Forget surge charges – Uber could just build against demand and recycle what they don’t use. Imagine fighting a forest fire with 3D printed drones?

Not only will this drive costs significantly down, but the idea of owning a car will be filed in the same category as riding a horse.

Also as the world evolves and develops new ways to stimulate our senses through sight, sound, touch and smell, we risk desensitization. Machines are already playing their part. As we bond closer with our devices and further away from one another, our bodies will react and evolve. They will start to tell us that we don’t need deep connections with others and try to force those emotional needs either with our devices, or out of our bodies entirely.

Our better understanding of our senses and how to share them and talk about them will drive closer unions, stronger communication, and bolder innovation. We must stay in touch with ourselves as people, our friends and family, and with the community as a whole. It always helps clear your head when you take a walk out in the fresh air, so take that literal step and help yourself stay a little more human.

Freud was considered a freak over 100 years ago. Email was laughed at in the 90s. Scalable 3D printing was deemed impossible in the 2000s.